WHAT THE ACTUALLY FUCK I AM SO UNCOMFORTABLE RIGHT NOW
what the actual fuck
This is actually pretty cool
I love how it undercuts the creepy with cute shit hahaa
The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom’s Orbital Structure
What you’re looking at is the first direct observation of an atom’s electron orbital — an atom’s actual wave function! To capture the image, researchers utilized a new quantum microscope — an incredible new device that literally allows scientists to gaze into the quantum realm.
An orbital structure is the space in an atom that’s occupied by an electron. But when describing these super-microscopic properties of matter, scientists have had to rely on wave functions — a mathematical way of describing the fuzzy quantum states of particles, namely how they behave in both space and time. Typically, quantum physicists use formulas like the Schrödinger equation to describe these states, often coming up with complex numbers and fancy graphs.
Hurricane on Saturn, in false-color near infrared.
via APOD
Humans With Amplified Intelligence Could Be More Powerful Than AI
With much of our attention focused the rise of advanced artificial intelligence, few consider the potential for radically amplified human intelligence (IA). It’s an open question as to which will come first, but a technologically boosted brain could be just as powerful — and just as dangerous – as AI. We spoke to a leading futurist to learn more.
If Earth Had Rings
First off, they would be really pretty to look at. They would also dominate the sky in both night and day at exactly the same place as they would never rise nor set. And at night you would see the Earth’s shadow swing across the rings, like in the 4th photo here.
However, life would be very different on Earth if this were the case. Nocturnal animals would have a hard time being nocturnal, as the light reflecting from the rings would illuminate the night.
Because we are closer to the Sun than Saturn is, the rings would be more rocky than ice, making them less bright but still pretty bright. In fact, you would see far less stars at night (living anywhere other than the equator or the arctic circle) because of the light pollution and not to mention ruin most meteor showers because of that.
During the day the rings would block sunlight in certain regions of the planet creating wild weather cycles and effecting plant life as well. So basically, they would be definitely pretty to look at but they would also make a whole lot of things screwy.
Illustrations by Ron Miller // io9
— Click the photos for captions
Electric discharge showing the lightning-like plasma filaments from a Tesla coil.
GIF from photos courtesy of Dan McCauley
orbiters
Nile - Sacrifice Unto Sebek
The Violent Violet Sun
“After dodging clouds and hailstorms all week I was able to record my first solar image at the CaK wavelength… 393.37nm in the violet end of the spectrum. I see almost no detail visually due to my eye’s poor sensitivity at this wavelength. But the camera sees good!” — Alan Friedman
